Sharpe & Flatte Piano Service

Sharpe & Flatte Piano Service Paul Larudee is a Registered Piano Technician, passing all exams of the Piano Technicians Guild All our work is guaranteed.

When your piano needs tuning, repair, or any other service, Sharpe & Flatte Piano Service is ready to provide it. Paul Larudee became a Registered Piano Technician in 1999, passing all exams of the Piano Technicians Guild. You can trust him with all your piano needs. We are dedicated to offering high quality piano tuning services to customers in the northern East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area

. Let us provide you with exceptional piano maintenance and improvement at an affordable price. We always make sure that every job is done in an efficient manner. Serving Berkeley, Oakland and surrounding areas, including:

Alameda
Albany
Berkeley
Brookfield
Bushrod
Chabot
Claremont
Crockett
Eastmont
El Cerrito
Elmhurst
Elmwood
El Sobrante
Emeryville
Glenview
Havenscourt
Hercules
Kensington
Lake Merritt
Lakeshore
Lockwood
Melrose
Millsmont
Mosswood
Oakland
Oakmore
Piedmont
Pinole
Richmond
Ridgemont
Rodeo
San Pablo
San Rafael
Sequoyah
Sheffield
Temescal
Trestle Glen
Vallejo
Woodminster

Hours of Operation - By appointment only.

12/06/2020

New pandemic restrictions will be imposed over the next few days in most of my service area. I have not yet found any regulations that talk about in-home services like piano work, other than for both customers and trades persons to wear a mask, wash hands or use hand sanitizer frequently, practice social distancing and avoid visits when any of the inhabitants or visitors are known or suspected to have come into contact with anyone with COVID-19, whether they are or have been ill or not.

I am happy to service your pianos if we all observe those conditions, and I take the additional step of wearing rubber gloves that I throw away after each visit. I also use sanitizer when the gloves come in contact with any surfaces before reaching your house.

The precautions protect us all.

Thank you.

10/22/2020

As everyone has remarked, it's strange trying to function under pandemic restrictions. Most of my customers are as careful as I am with PPE and protocol.

I think it's better for pianos, technicians and customers not to use disinfectants on the pianos themselves. Nitrile gloves are a germ proof barrier that is pretty much worry free. Working with a mask and gloves is not all that comfortable, but I'm pretty much used to it now, and I either change gloves or use disinfectant between appointments.

I and many of my customers are in a vulnerable category of age and health, so we all have to be careful not to even potentially transmit disease until this is over.

Hope you're doing well, and Stay Safe!

Paul

05/26/2020

I'm back in operation! I wear gloves and a mask during my visit and keep disinfectant in my van which I use on my gloved hands between visits and whenever else it may be advisable. I suggest you also wear a mask and maintain distancing. Although the rate of infection in my service area is not significantly decreasing, it seems that long term solutions require us to resume some normal activities under precautionary procedures as much as we can while awaiting a vaccine or similar advances.

04/27/2020

I miss your pianos!

At midnight on March 16, 2020, my work became pretty much illegal due to COVID-19 regulations. Some might make exceptions, but I think it's in everyone's interest for me to stay out of my customers' homes until the infection rate recedes or other solutions become available.

I'm tentatively preparing to resume work before or at the end of May, so right now I'm making a list of customers that want appointments. I'll call you as soon as I can be fairly certain of a start date. Let me know if you want to be added to my list.

When I resume, I plan to use a mask and rubber gloves, and to suggest that you and your family stay away from the piano for at least 24 hours before I arrive, and that we practice distancing from the beginning of the visit until the end. You may also wish to stay away from the piano for another 24 hours after I leave.

The vast majority of people that have been infected with CV-19 have had mild cases. It's possible that I'm one of them, and that I had it in early March. But it wasn't serious enough to get tested, so I don't really know. If I did, I may now be immune, but I'm taking no chances, because I could still be a carrier. And if I didn't, I'd rather not risk getting it.

Sorry so many of you are having to make do with untuned pianos, but I promise to give them the attention they deserve as soon as the restrictions are lifted. Stay safe!

01/14/2019

I tuned the piano of one of my long time customers that I have known since the 1970s when we both worked at St. Mary's College. She told me that she had just celebrated her 90th birthday.

I congratulated her and said, "I'll be very surprised if I make it that far." She was much more optimistic.

"You'll make it that far, all right," she said. "And you'll still be tuning my piano."

10/03/2017

Occasionally I have to give bad news to a client. I try to avoid it by trying to assess as much as possible over the phone and suggesting what the possible problem might be, and the costs. My nightmare is to hear "But you never told me..." which fortunately I haven't heard in many years.

My second worst is that all my efforts fail, which is also pretty rare. Fortunately, today was not one of those days. There was plenty of reason to fear otherwise. The $85 piano from Goodwill was one of Baldwin's experiments in how to make a piano as cheaply as possible. It had multiple problems, but most could be fixed fairly easily. The one thing that could not was that the entire set of original sticker grommets was made to last 25 years, while the piano was more than 50 years old.

The solution was either to replace the grommets at a cost of hundreds of dollars or to show the customer how to return the stickers to their proper position when they popped out. He opted for the latter (until possibly later), so I was able to charge only $50 for all the fixes, on top of the tuning fee. That worked well for both of us.

08/27/2017

Talk about challenges! Yesterday I was scheduled to do an installation of a pair of piano dollies on a roughly 100 year old Steinway upright in a church. Normally this is a 1.5 hour job, but this one took 4-5 hours. The reason is that this old Steinway is a former player piano and the widest upright I've ever seen. No piano dollies that I've ever seen would fit that piano.

The solution was to fit the piano to the dollies, by cutting away part of the bottom board. Luckily, the bottom board is a solid 1" thick and has a 2x2" beam across the front that didn't need to be cut. It was a lot of work, but the result was even nicer than on most pianos, because the entire mechanism was hidden under the piano.

I didn't charge extra because neither the customer, a church with a tight budget, nor I was expecting the problem. If I see the problem again, I'll be able to anticipate and charge accordingly, but this time I'm just happy that it came out so well.

01/26/2017

Many thanks to Chalice Fong at Grand Lake Gardens, who casually asked if she could film me tuning their beautiful Yamaha C5 grand. Brief, but if you've never seen a piano tuned before, perhaps you'll enjoy it. And if you have a piano and never tuned it...well, you know the rest.

01/06/2017

Today I tuned two pianos. One was small upright more than 50 years old. The other was was a recent model 7 foot Yamaha grand. The grand was farther out of tune even though I tuned it a month ago, while the upright had gone without tuning for more than a year.

How did that happen? The upright was against an interior wall of a well insulated house, while the grand was next to a huge single pane picture window that made up one entire exterior wall of the house. Furthermore, it was pouring rain when I tuned the grand last time while this time there was not a cloud in the sky. I can't remember how the weather was when I previously tuned the upright, but I'm pretty sure it was not exceptional.

What happened with the grand was pretty unusual, but I checked it before tuning. Sure enough, there was a pattern to the detuning that was totally consistent with a large drop in humidity. After tuning it once again, it sounded gorgeous, and I gave my customer a huge discount because I didn't think she should pay full price twice in less than two months.

It's possible that the grand will need a humidity control system installed because of its location, but I suggested waiting to see how well this tuning holds before committing to that solution. It's a beautiful instrument, but the treble is a bit weak, which bears further investigation. It's sitting directly on a pile wall-to-wall carpet without caster cups. I wonder if some hardwood cups designed for grand pianos would make a difference. Wally Brooks of Brooks Piano Works used to pitch that as a solution, so perhaps we'll try that as well. I'm pretty sure it's not the condition of the hammer felts.

12/24/2016

A customer of mine called me while I was tuning another piano. She wanted to make an appointment for me to come and fix a key that had stuck in the down position and wouldn't come up.

"Which key is it?" I asked.
"The F below middle C," she said.
"Try playing the F #," I suggested.
So she did, and all of a sudden the F key popped up and worked fine.

Can you guess what was wrong and why the remedy worked? No piano technicians, please!

Press ReleaseFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASESharpe & Flatte Piano Service Receives 2015 Best of Richmond AwardRichmond Award Progr...
07/09/2015

Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Sharpe & Flatte Piano Service Receives 2015 Best of Richmond Award

Richmond Award Program Honors the Achievement

RICHMOND July 2, 2015 -- Sharpe & Flatte Piano Service has been selected for the 2015 Best of Richmond Award in the Piano Tuning & Repair category by the Richmond Award Program.

Each year, the Richmond Award Program identifies companies that we believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and our community. These exceptional companies help make the Richmond area a great place to live, work and play.

Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2015 Richmond Award Program focuses on quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered both internally by the Richmond Award Program and data provided by third parties.

About Richmond Award Program

The Richmond Award Program is an annual awards program honoring the achievements and accomplishments of local businesses throughout the Richmond area. Recognition is given to those companies that have shown the ability to use their best practices and implemented programs to generate competitive advantages and long-term value.

The Richmond Award Program was established to recognize the best of local businesses in our community. Our organization works exclusively with local business owners, trade groups, professional associations and other business advertising and marketing groups. Our mission is to recognize the small business community's contributions to the U.S. economy.

SOURCE: Richmond Award Program

CONTACT:
Richmond Award Program
Email: [email protected]
URL: http://www.awardcontact.org

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Address

405 Vista Heights Road
El Cerrito, CA
94530

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 10pm
Tuesday 8am - 10pm
Wednesday 8am - 10pm
Thursday 8am - 10pm
Friday 8am - 10pm
Saturday 8am - 10pm
Sunday 8am - 10pm

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